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Each Year, I Say This Year's iPhone Is The Perfect One But I Always End Up Upgrading The Follow Year

There is something about Apple's method of upgrading its iOS devices that has made me upgrade each and every single year since the original iPhone except for the 3GS. What is it about each year's upgrade that compelled me to do this? And it's not just me. Others I know as well.

Granted that for those locked into contracts, I get that your upgrade cycle might be different. Of course, you can still upgrade like I do by buying the iPhone outright from Apple or your carrier, paying for the full price. I do this by convincing myself that I'm worth it. And for the most part, I'm frugal and I hardly splurge. On top of that, my $30 T-Mobile plan likely has your $70+ plan beaten.

Still, once the iPhone 4 came out, I have said to myself, "5 megapixel camera. That's good enough. And it's retina display. How much better can it be for the next one? What? 4S?"

I think it over and this was even before the 4S is close to being out. I loved my iPhone 4.

Then the 4S. Crap. Siri. 8 Megapixel but better lens too. Siri. Wow. The promise of a digital assistant with artificial intelligence. I gotta get that. Plus, like my mom said about the iPhone 4S, "it's Steve Jobs' last iPhone".

Then the iPhone 5. Bigger screen. Even better camera without upping the pixel count. This is too much of a draw. The disappointing thing was that the battery life did not improve. Oh well, still, lighter, runs all of the latest and greatest of iOS 6. GPS turn-by-turn was awesome even though Apple Maps was doing more damages to buildings than giant Japanese monsters ever dreamed of. Plus, I had a couple of friends who I was trying to convince to get into Apple's ecosystem. And the more I told them about the virtues of Apple's ecosystem and pointed out the bad things about it, I was convinced of upgrading by my own arguments. So, I upgraded it.

Now, the iPhone 5s. Boy. Not a whole lot to write home about right now if you only follow the tech and financial blogs. But if you truly were spend a bit of time going over the iPhone 5s introduction, you'd realize that the iPhone 5s may actually be Apple's most "forward looking" device and not a Steve Jobs-less reality distortion field at work.

A newer innovative camera system to make it one of the best on the market - even better than some point-and-shoot cameras. Forget the 64-bit architecture and what it means for the future but its M7 coprocessor is just waiting for the right apps to take advantage of it. Then there's the ability to take advantage of the newly redeveloped UI in iOS 7.

Now, I'm not all that drawn to the new color schemes with the silver, space gray, and gold. So, that would not convince me one bit. Nor is the slight improvement in the battery life. Yes, we did get an improvement from 8 hours under LTE use in the iPhone 5 to 10 hours in the 5s, over all, I was expecting much more.

Sounds like a draw, right? I got some of what I want and some stuff that left me wanting in the 5s. Well, in the grand scheme of things, we are still talking about a whole new mobile experience if you're willing to look at what the future Apple is offering with the 5s.

There is one thing that sort of pushed me over to upgrading to the iPhone 5s: it's that my iPhone 5 is limited to only 16 GB. It's not where nearly enough. I have had to compromise my mobile experience by deleting apps or not installing some apps because I just don't have the space for them.

I'm planning on ordering the 64 GB version come midnight Friday this week. I think with the new camera, iOS 7, 64-bit chip with the M7 coprocessor, and more storage, I see the beginning of a new dawn of a whole new mobile experience.

As for iPhone 6? New form factor. Bigger screen a possibility. 128 GB storage. iOS 8. And who knows what new camera or battery experience, I don't know. I think we may be visiting this upgrade issue again.